


A non-existent man

by KipDigress



Series: Stopping to think [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Being sensible, Gen, Miracle Day, More or less Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-03-29 17:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19024462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KipDigress/pseuds/KipDigress
Summary: Jack's departure from Earth, running away from the guilt of killing his grandson and the ghosts that haunt 'the blue planet', coincided with Ianto Jones' 'death'. Now, eighteen months later, a single word, emailed to a lot of people has Jack returning to Earth and asking Ianto for help. While Jack goes to and fro a cross the pond, risking his mortal life along the way, Ianto stays safely 'dead', but not inactive.Otherwise known as: Ianto Jones is alive and well during the events of 'Miracle Day'.Follows on from 'One Less Death' - which gives a shorter indication of my approach to changing canonical events.Chapter 12 - added, 06.06.2019 - is some notes about how I came to write Ianto's role in the way it is and some thoughts on why 'Miracle Day' is so dissatisfying to watch.





	1. A series of unexpected events

**Author's Note:**

> Curiously enough, this mostly consists of filling in gaps in the storyline until the very end. I have consciously tried to avoid changing much, although there's one implicit change at the very start. I first considered rewriting the whole, but realised that would cast Ianto as Jack's shadow - which he most definitely isn't - and so his independent existence is rather quiet.
> 
> This probably requires reasonable knowledge of Miracle Day since I am not retelling that story, merely adjusting things slightly to incorporate (an officially dead) Ianto Jones. I'd be very interested to hear how it reads for anyone who doesn't know much of the last 10 TV episodes of Torchwood.

Ianto Jones would usually have described himself as a morning person, and most of his acquaintance would have agreed with him. But, half a year ago, after several months of hitting snooze ten times every day, he'd give up on the concept of getting up at a time that would allow him to make any reasonable use of the day. Every day was the same, the weekend the same as the week. He'd developed a fondness for crows though, a natural alarm call: come on, they'd say, time to get up, the day's half gone, but there's still time to enjoy it. And so, Ianto would obey the summons and roll out of bed to enjoy, as much as possible, the sheer inanity of being someone who was so far undercover that he didn't even exist.

As far as he knew, there were no records of him at all, nothing to say that anyone lived in the house he currently occupied, hell, he wasn't even sure whether the building even officially existed. His bills weren't paid by himself; he didn't have any ID - not even a driving license; his three bank accounts were all under different names, none of which he actually answered to, and whose supposed ages were close enough to his actual age to match his looks if he ever actually needed to visit a bank in person - although, given the thoroughness with which he had otherwise been wiped off the face of the Earth, a visit to a bank was highly unlikely. Strict instructions to his accounts consistently meant that, though he used cash as much as he could, card purchases and cash withdrawals made to the south-east of New Street were in the name of John S. Howard; those to the north-west by an Ivan Jones, the identity by which he was known locally and, when he travelled, which was rare, but a change of scene as far as Wrexham or Chester was allowed, although frequent or further trips had been expressly warned against, he became the unidentifiable David Collins. After so long driving and being driven around Cardiff in the Torchwood SUV, the constrains imposed by sometimes unreliable buses had taken some getting used to but timetables weren't that difficult to memorise, and the fewer pieces of paper there were associated with him, the safer he was.

So every day, he obeyed two sets of orders, got up and stayed as quiet as he could bear to in a forgotten corner of the world. He'd asked for - and received without question - a veritable library of books, to which he was consistently adding; part of an effort to not become entirely addicted to the internet - or worse, risk not just his own detection, but also Gwen's own hidden identity, Torchwood's security and by extension, the Earth's safety, by submitting to the temptation of logging into the Torchwood server for something that was interesting enough to keep him amused for more than two days at a time. At least, he supposed, his general knowledge was not suffering and he was managing to get some sleep; the lack of nightmares something of a surprise and a considerable relief.

His personal effects were minimal and carefully protected; with the destruction of the Hub, he'd assumed that all photos of the team he'd been part of had been destroyed, so he didn't have any mementos other than a photo of Lisa he kept at the end of a bookshelf: she was dead, so, unlike his sister, not endangered by its place in his strange life. Ianto had been both surprised and relieved when, several months after he'd moved in, he'd found and triggered the false bottom of the top drawer of the old-fashioned desk that was very Jack-like. There he'd found a photo of the five of them at Gwen's wedding: clearly Jack had been responsible for the desk - and quite possibly for all the details of his non-existence. Even with Torchwood providing a degree of protection and stability that at least partially negated the need for continual reinvention, he would certainly be an expert in such things. Ianto more than half suspected that the house was one of Queen Victoria's Torchwood acquisitions that the Government did not know about, or at least on Torchwood land, but it could equally well be Jack's private property.

He ran, he walked, he read, learnt a programming language called Python that seemed to be all the rage, cooked something other than student food instead of living on take away, he even managed a bit of gardening. He'd once wondered what he would ever do with the memories of Torchwood if he didn't have Torchwood as his daily reality: now he knew.

It was a pleasant spring day. He'd spent the afternoon up at the castle, reading in the weak sunshine, before the cooling air had sent him back inside to the warmth. He'd treated himself to a slice of cake and a cup of mediocre coffee at one of the cafés: the best the town had to offer, not yet ready to head home. It was almost dark when he walked slowly up the path to his front door. He stood on the doorstep for a minute, gazing down the road without really seeing what was there. He took a deep breath and sighed: another day gone with nothing to show for it. He opened the door and stepped through, closing and locking it behind him.

He stopped, hand holding his jacket to its peg, head tilted slightly to one side, frowning. Call him suspicious, but a year of non-existence that did not guaranteed safety, coupled with his tendency to notice things, and he was well aware of what his empty house should sound and feel like, and it wasn't as it did right now. He finished hanging up his coat and reached up to above the door, bringing down the item hidden there and holding it carefully in both hands as he made his soft way along the hallway. He peered into the small living room, empty; when he stepped out into the hallway again his suspicions that he was not alone in the house were confirmed. Jack Harkness was standing in his kitchen doorway as if he owned the place - which perhaps he did.

Ianto had trained the gun on Jack before he registered who it was he was seeing. He lowered it slowly.

'Jack,' he said, surprised at how steady his voice was.

'Hello Ianto,' Jack replied, though without his usual levity, and his trademark grin was definitely more than a little shaky.

Ianto shook his head sadly. 'Coffee?' he suggested after a long silence. He needed something to keep his hands occupied, and some decent coffee would definitely help him get through what was surely going to be a more than averagely awkward conversation.

'You read my mind,' Jack said softly, taking a step back so Ianto could make his way into the kitchen.

Ianto busied himself making coffee. Jack hovered uncertainly by the doorway, sitting only when Ianto waved him to a chair. Ianto set two mugs of coffee on the table and sat opposite Jack who took a sip and smiled warmly; he had missed proper coffee, and Ianto's really was very good.

'Thanks,' Jack said, when Ianto seemed disinclined to commence any conversation. 'So?' he prompted, when Ianto continued to sip in silence.

'So what?' Ianto retorted softly, raising a querying eyebrow.

'I honestly don't know where to start,' Jack admitted, looking down at the coffee cup cradled in his hands.

'Three options,' Ianto told him, 'the beginning, the end or niceties.'

'Small talk's overrated,' Jack said, 'I don't know the beginning, so I suppose it will have to be the end.'

'What's happened?' Ianto asked, knowing that it had to be something serious for Jack to return to Earth.

'Do you watch the news?' Jack asked, half suspecting the answer given the absence of a TV in the house.

'No,' Ianto replied, 'and I don't listen to the radio either.'

'You've been in town today, you didn't happen to look at the headlines?'

'Nah,' Ianto shrugged, 'after a few weeks I realised that living in ignorance of what goes on beyond what I experience directly is fractionally easier than knowing what's going on and having to stand by and watch, powerless.'

Jack nodded, drinking the last of his coffee in a series of large gulps that Ianto would have once made at least one disparaging comment about. 'We're going to need more coffee, because this isn't straightforward and I don't know most of it, but I'll tell you what I know.'

Ianto obligingly made more coffee. Having refilled Jack's mug and topped up his own, he resumed his seat opposite Jack.

'So, what's happened?' he asked again.

'Two things,' Jack said with a sigh. 'At 0336 GMT this morning, a single word was emailed to an awful lot of people, which resulted in an awful lot of question that should never have been asked, being asked.'

'The word?'

'Torchwood,' Jack stated simply, his voice serious.

'Ah, hence your return,' Ianto nodded, his lips compressed in a tight line.

'Yes, I've dealt with the digital records. There was some code developed in the eighties that would have made the millennium bug look benign; Tosh updated it soon after she joined,' Jack explained. 'It causes serious system damage. What I've yet to sort out are the physical copies.'

Ianto nodded again, more surprised at Jack's willing mention of the woman who had died in his arms three years earlier, eyes fixed on the man who had saved her from more than the living hell of a UNIT prison, than at his casual use and, by implication, the continued functioning of the Torchwood server.

'I've got to go to America,' Jack said after a moment, not sounding particularly thrilled at the prospect.

'And you want me to deal with the British records,' Ianto replied.

'If you would.'

'Two non-existent men causing havoc in the halls of government?' Ianto said somewhat more cheerfully, the ghost of a smile lurking at the corners of his lips, though the tension that hadn't been lurking around his eyes before Jack had mentioned Torchwood had not dissipated. 'Sounds almost like the old days.'

'Nothing like, we steered clear of anything even vaguely resembling hallowed halls,' Jack countered.

'Is it just Whitehall I need to deal with?' Ianto asked more seriously after a few moments' silence. Their last encounter with central London had not been the happiest of his experiences as a member of Torchwood, and the recent part of Jack's history with the metropolis was even more uniformly negative than his own.

'Yes, I think so, yes,' Jack said slowly. 'The Royal family has records too, but they're very minimal and mostly historical, and I think they should be preserved - if only to ensure that Flat Holm can continue to provide sanctuary to those who were unfortunate enough to experience a round trip through the Rift. They also don't record the members of Torchwood, so Gwen's safe.'

'Can they be trusted?' Ianto wondered.

'I think so,' Jack said after some thought. 'When I spoke with the Queen eighteen months ago, I asked exactly how many people knew about Torchwood, she said that the record was in the private family archives, only accessible to the reigning monarch, their spouse and their eldest descendent, once they had reached their majority, though the latter two need approval from the monarch to access.'

'And, given Torchwood's money comes directly from the Crown, it would probably be just as well that the order for the expenses is preserved,' Ianto nodded.

'Yeah.'

'So I take Whitehall and you take America,' Ianto resumed after a long pause. 'Then what?'

'I don't know,' Jack admitted frankly. 'As far as the records go, you're dead. I believe they even gave you a funeral. I'm worried about Gwen, though. If anyone gets hold of any of the paper copies, her death won't be recorded.'

'So you'll go back to wherever she is,' Ianto stated.

'Yeah. Keeping her safe is my priority,' Jack confirmed, and Ianto tried not to take offence or feel hurt that he was lower down Jack's list of people to protect than Gwen. Jack must have read something of the discomforting thought in his face. 'No, Ianto, it's you I come back for, but you're better able to look after yourself than Gwen. She has more demands on her and needs someone to look out for her while she tries to protect those she holds dear.'

Ianto nodded stiffly, somewhat mollified by Jack's sincere tone as he leant forward, clutching his mug tightly as if he was forcing his hands to stay put.

'What's the other part of the story?' Ianto asked once the silence had stretched for so long that it was becoming uncomfortable.

'The headlines you haven't missed because there's not been time for them to make their way onto paper?' Jack asked, realising that he'd hadn't properly allowed for the fact that even east coast US was time zones behind Wales. 'A convicted paedophile, sentenced to death in Kentucky didn't die when he should have.'

'Something to keep an eye on, then.'

'Yeah, exactly, and I can't help thinking that it's somehow connected with the Torchwood email.'

'It might not be a Torchwood type of thing though,' Ianto pointed out reasonably. Occasionally, for whatever reason or oversight, it was possible for executions - the very thought of a planned killing in the 21st century seemed barbaric to Ianto, but that was one of the inconsistencies of America for you - to not go as planned and the victim to survive.

'Maybe, maybe not, but the timing is indicative.' The words may have been speculative, but Jack's tone was firm.

'I'll keep an eye on it, investigate if it gets weirder,' Ianto promised, deciding to keep his doubts to himself since Jack seemed to have made his mind up on the point.

'Be careful, don't draw attention to yourself. Depending how things develop I'll be back or in touch.'

'The ciphered messaging system in the secure part of the system?' Ianto suggested, not quite managing to prevent the corners of his lips twitching at Jack's obvious surprise that he knew of the messaging system that had been developed in the nineties but never shared with Torchwood One and had not been resorted to while he was in Cardiff.

'Yes, but to be used sparingly, anything big will become public knowledge soon enough. We're pretty certain that no one's accessed anything but what we wanted them to reach, but you never know, and this email has me more than a little concerned.' Even allowing for the guilt associated with killing one's own grandchild before running away for goodness knew how long, Ianto could see that Jack was genuinely worried about the implications of apparent human immortality and a high-profile advertisement of Torchwood's existence.

'When do you leave?' He asked, keeping to practicalities.

'Tomorrow afternoon from Heathrow.'

'Stay a while?' Ianto offered a bit uncertainly. His emotions were in uproar as he processed the danger and news Jack's return had brought, not to mention the unexpected reappearance of a man whom he had come to accept he was not going to see again, but his existence in Mold was lonely.

'Only if you want me to,' Jack said seriously, aware that he really hadn't done his best by the young welshman and slightly worried that Ianto was more upset than he was letting on.

Ianto nodded stiffly. He desperately wanted to ask Jack - his former boss, friend and sometime lover - what had happened to him, where he'd been and how long the year and a half that had passed on Earth had been for him, but he held back. Jack had disappeared, had run off, again. This time, admittedly with explanations and farewells, but, though being left behind had hurt him, he still wasn't certain it was fair to tax the leaver for further explanations if they were not willingly volunteered. Given the complications of the past, creating a few hours of opportunity to talk, reconnect or whatever one did in these situations, barely seemed worth it, but one of the results of nearly two years of reflection and quiet was that Ianto knew he wasn't angry or hurt enough to kick Jack out of his life the minute he reappeared in it - if he ever deigned to return. It seemed a bit petty given the events that had precipitated his departure in the first place.

'I would suggest we decamped to the sitting room,' he said, as he made them another cup of coffee each, 'but I barely use it and, while there is a sofa, it's considerably warmer in here. I'll put the heating on so it's not quite a freezer later, but for now, I think we'd be more comfortable staying here.' He disappeared for a minute or so as the coffee brewed, returning to place their cups on the table and resume his seat.

'The last time I was here,' Jack began tentatively, after they'd sat and sipped in silence for a while, 'well, in Wales,' he clarified, noticing Ianto's alarm that this might not have been the first time Jack had invaded his home, 'Gwen said something that I more than half expected you to contradict.'

'And what was that?' Ianto asked blandly.

Jack took a breath, he'd really hoped that Ianto would make the statement. 'That you love me,' he said in a rush, almost mumbling.

'Ah, that.' Ianto looked thoughtful for a moment. 'What can I say? I do wish she hadn't said it, but there seemed no reason to start an argument about it. You were going away - for good it seemed - there was nothing to be gained by disagreeing.'

'So it's the truth?' Jack asked: he and Ianto had never said anything so explicit to each other, and the week when the Hub had been destroyed had been difficult in more ways than one; their personal relationship destabilised by his persistence in keeping secrets and Ianto's struggle to understand exactly was so loosely defined between them.

Ianto was silent for a long moment, eyes fixed on his mug. Despite Jack's immediate reply of 'We are' to his observation that they came across as being 'together', he'd been being absolutely honest with his sister when he'd told her that he really did have no idea what he and Jack were. The rest of that week had merely confirmed it, though with time he'd come to see that a lot of Jack's behaviour after they'd rescued him from a concrete block in Ashton Down had been driven by remorse, exacerbated by concern for his daughter and grandson, as well as himself and Gwen.

'Ianto?' Jack prompted softly.

'Yeah,' Ianto sighed, 'it was the truth.'

'And now?' Jack wondered, noting how careful Ianto had been to enunciate 'was' clearly.

'Now I've no idea,' Ianto admitted frankly, finally raising his eyes and Jack could read the truth of the confusion and doubt that troubled his erstwhile lover.

'We need time,' Jack agreed readily.

'Which we don't have,' Ianto said evenly, though his dissatisfaction was not well disguised.

Jack ran a hand through his hair. 'I _know_ ,' he said, frustrated, though he was aware that the situation between him and Ianto when they'd last seen each other was almost entirely his own doing. Protecting Gwen Cooper from anyone whose interest might have been piqued by a single word email that bypassed a lot of security features was a more typically inconvenient Torchwood circumstance, and considerably more straightforward to deal with than ill-defined relationship problems between a man who didn't talk much and one who had a habit of talking to distract.

'But through everything, we were friends,' Ianto pointed out, hoping that Jack would understand that he was offering a starting point that did not have expectations.

'That was once my argument,' Jack replied with a twitch of his lips.

'There are far worse things to be,' Ianto reminded Jack, remaining pragmatic and refusing to let his relief that Jack had caught the insinuation of his last statement show on his face.

'So let's start there and see where it leads us,' Jack agreed. He'd taken a similar approach when he'd first returned from his time with the Doctor, although at that point, the casual nature of their relationship up to that point and Jack's immediate intentions to stay in Cardiff had made asking out Ianto on a date a viable option. This time round, they needed something less demanding to start with - he'd been away for longer and their relationship had been rocky immediately before his departure. Though he more than half-hoped they might eventually return to something of their old relationship, he did shudder inwardly at the thought that he might have to define it in order to avoid the disagreements that had further soured Ianto's discovery of one of his larger secrets and a particularly inglorious phase of his past, but Jack knew the value of friendship well enough to not push for more too quickly.

'Agreed,' Ianto said with a small smile, holding out a hand across the table. Jack shook it, sealing their understanding that, for now, they would consider each other as friends.

Ianto thought back to the week the Hub had been destroyed and how he'd struggled with Jack's refusal to share the details of his long life. He honestly didn't know whether that would have been easier without the additional emotional involvement that came from his undisclosed feelings towards Jack, but he knew well enough that his concern had been that of a friend as well as a lover: the latter simply gave him rather more freedom (or confidence) to express his concern. But they'd been friends before Ianto's betrayal with Lisa had come to light. If they ever had more than a few hours to spare, they were now clear that they stood in a position where hard questions could be asked and expect honest answers - or honest denials of answers - to be given.


	2. Waiting

After waving Jack off with a smile and a firm handshake after a good breakfast the following morning - he'd been tempted to step forward for a hug and had been slightly surprised when Jack hadn't - Ianto logged into to the secure part of the Torchwood server and found the rarely used cryptic messaging system. He checked the access log and saw that it was as it should have been: the last access was from just over two years earlier when he'd stumbled across it by accident and had figured out how it worked.

He'd declined Jack's offer of a lift down to Heathrow, and wondered whether he was going to regret it since public transport did allow far more opportunities for him to be traced. He shrugged, it was done now and couldn't be undone. He packed a small rucksack with a few necessities and and carefully set the house to occupied to the casual observer. After taking a deep breath and running through a mental checklist of what he thought he needed to do, he opened the front door and stepped out. First stop: three different cashpoints and £250 from each of his cards; second: some edibles that would keep and a cheap baseball cap; third: a bus to Chester and thence a train to London.

In Chester he paid cash for an open return ticket to London and sat on a bench with the baseball cap pulled down to shield his face; he hated the things, but reckoned the precaution wise since he was not only away from home without notice, but going far beyond where his agreement permitted him to travel. He wished he could have reasonably worn a suit, but jeans and a jacket worked with a baseball cap while a suit would simply draw attention. That said, he had a decent shirt and trousers in his bag: blagging his way into Whitehall would be easier if he looked like he might just belong. He just hoped it didn't rain so much that a light jacket became conspicuous.

It took a day and two nights of poking into corners that he didn't belong in and using various fake IDs that he'd surreptitiously made when the temptation to log into the Torchwood server had become too much to resist, before Ianto was convinced that every paper reference to Torchwood after the Battle of Canary Wharf had been destroyed. He didn't allow himself to rest, wanting to leave the continuous surveillance of London behind him as soon as he could. 

Finishing shortly before midnight, he realised he had just missed the last train and had several hours spare before the first train that would take him to Chester. He thought carefully and decided to risk using an internet café to access the server. He glanced around the almost empty, but luridly lit room, noting the placement and interests of the other two visitors - a young man looking up fire lighting, an older one seemingly intent on trans-pacific cruises. Convinced that their attention was most definitely not on him, he logged onto the server and opened the messaging programme, entered replies to the prompts asking about encoding (places: rename; names: initials; theme: consistent; numbers: simple alpha-numeric) and confirmed the number of participants (two) before typing his message:

_London done._

The message sent, he wiped the history of the IP address's usage, as well as the computer's internal records, before using one of the nastier pieces of software on the server, that applied several common computer viruses simultaneously and effectively, to basically destroy the operating system of the computer he had been using.

That done, he quietly left the internet café, refusing to feel bad about the costs he'd caused his unwitting host. His casual clothes passed uncommented as he walked confidently into the café at the University College Hospital almost opposite Euston station. He reckoned it was a good place to sit brooding in a corner for a few sleepless hours, the hospital full of anxious relatives who needed to pass the time without daring to go far. He caught the first train possible back to Chester, struggling to stay awake as he slouched in his seat on the hour and a half journey to Crewe, but knowing that he needed to. He reached his house and, though he wanted to do nothing more than sleep, he started up his laptop and logged into the Torchwood server, but was disappointed to find no reply.

Waiting at Dulles airport for his flight back to Heathrow, Jack finally logged in to the secure messaging system and was pleased to read:

_Centre of time set._

'US also.' He typed. 'Now to see Gwen Cooper safe.'

After his earlier impatience being disappointed, Ianto forced himself to not look for a message as soon as he woke up, even though he'd slept for almost an entire day and night, but to get through the entire of the day first. When he checked, he found:

_Time lag adjusted for. Next effort is to ensure general compliance to mean time._

Knowing that Jack would soon be with Gwen, Ianto relaxed slightly and fretted less constantly about waiting for messages, although he did admit to himself that the habit of checking every twelve hours was bordering on obsessive. He knew Jack would be in touch if he needed to be. The next message, a week later, had him concerned though:

_Forced trip across the pond leads to the calm beyond. With gracious co-conspirator and two completely independent agents: a mathematical meat eating dinosaur of a raging musician partnered with an elegant drummer. (Identifiers are curious things.) Conditions and circumstances seem unfavourable with complicit individuals abounding. Events may be centred on the sender. Chances of survival have been reversed compared with past._

The first part, indicating that Jack was with Gwen and in the US, near the Pacific Ocean, to be precise, was easy enough, as was the fact that their departure from the UK had not been entirely voluntary. The next parts were more complicated and would require time. The ending seemed simpler. Changing conditions and inverted chances of survival indicated that Jack was quite possibly mortal, which contrasted with the weird, rather unhelpful, immortality that seemed to be afflicting members of the human race born in the 20th and 21st centuries. He really din't like the possible implications of the comment about the sender - it seemed to indicate that Jack was quite literally in mortal danger, and may have already survived one threat if it was becoming clear enough for him to think Ianto should know.

'For a given definition of immortal. Keep safe.' Ianto typed, knowing there was little he could do other than make himself aware of who Jack was currently keeping company with in order to try to limit potential surprises. Jack would presumably read the message when he next needed help - or had something important to say, although Ianto expected the former to be more likely - simply because that is what would force Jack to consider options and resources.

He transcribed the central section of the message into shorthand and mulled it over. It took most of the day: He thought back to the encoding he'd set, initials were likely to be preserved, although place names seemed to get scrambled. There was no rush, so he took his time examining the copied message - each sentence carefully given its own piece of paper. He wondered whether the 'Completely Independent Agents' were indeed the initials of the CIA, it seemed plausible given that Jack and Gwen had not gone to the US willingly, and Americans were infamous for throwing their weight around. He took it as a working hypothesis.

Then there was the 'mathematical meat eating dinosaur of a raging musician partnered with an elegant drummer.' That seemed to indicate two people, the second with initials E. D., possibly with 'drum' forming some part of the surname, though that was most certainly not guaranteed. The 'elegant' might also indicate that this was a woman, Gwen was 'gracious', so it fitted, at least in the context of this message. So that left him to figure out the first part of the riddle: thematic connections would suggest that the initials were R. M.. The mathematical dinosaur might be a clue to the name. Meat eating dinosaurs, Ianto thought, T-Rex was the obvious one, perhaps that was R. M.'s first name, perhaps it wasn't. He had a look online, but no other dinosaur name looked as promising. Then mathematical could indicate part of the surname. He tried various possibilities, Math... seemed more likely than Matica..., although which ever way he looked at it, he had the first three letters as Mat...

He thought for a few minutes, idly twirling a pencil between his fingers. Two CIA agents: R. M. - probably male, possibly Rex- Mat-, the other, an E. D., probably female, surname possibly Drum-. He didn't know anything about the CIA, but he would have been surprised if they two people he was interested in hadn't already crossed paths in their jobs before (possibly) going on the run. Before he accessed the CIA database, he considered the last part of the message again. It was clearer, and studying it now was more a matter of understanding the details than the gist. It seemed that most of the danger might possibly be coming from the CIA. He gulped - that was not a safe position for either Gwen or Jack.

Assuming he'd interpreted everything else correctly, a quick look into the CIA personnel database was in order. But he wouldn't have much time, even with the Torchwood software. The email followed by the malware attack almost two weeks ago would have led to heightened security measures. This required coffee and a cool head before starting. He took his time making himself a cup of coffee, and nibbled on a biscuit as he sipped. Having turned the message inside out every way he could think of, he got his laptop and logged on to the Torchwood server to see what he could glean from the CIA databases.

His short foray was enlightening to say the least, Rex Matheson and Esther Drummond; one of the CIA's star field agents and his regular analyst partner. If the coincidence of the names hadn't been enough, both agents were listed as rogue from three days after he'd waved Jack off to the US.

'Oh, Jack,' he breathed once he had logged off and deleted as much of the traces of his visit and internet traffic as he could.


	3. On the edge of panic

'Esther, Esther,' Jack said feebly from his place on the back seat of the commandeered CIA four by four.

'What is it?' Esther knew her voice was high and fraught, but she couldn't help it; Jack had been shot and the news at eight am had said the world economy was collapsing; she'd turned the radio off shortly afterwards, but couldn't imagine that anything had improved in the last three hours. She wasn't trained for this she thought, feeling more out of her depth than she had since Rex had called to warn her they'd both been set up.

'We need to get to the UK,' Jack managed after a gasp as the car jolted over a bump in the road.

'To see Gwen?' Esther guessed.

'Yes,'

'How?' Esther couldn't see how they could manage it: the CIA had serious resources, they were not going to be allowed to leave the US.

'Contacts,' Jack said shortly.

'Torchwood?' Esther guessed again.

'After a fashion,' Jack agreed. He lapsed into silence as Esther continued driving. She pulled off the road when she could, parking at one edge of a Walmart lot, slightly away from the entrance where competition for minimal exercise was high, but not tucked away in a corner, so determined to not be seen that it became conspicuous. She rummaged in the boot, digging out a first aid kit and dressing Jack's wound. He handed her his card, and told her the PIN, giving her instructions to get whatever they would need for two or three days, including more first aid supplies now they had a better idea of the damage the bullet had done. They had a bite to eat and Jack insisted that they stayed still for a while and rested. There was a decent chance the car was being being looked for, but Esther assured Jack that CCTV coverage in the US was patchy and typically tied to individual stores so, as long as they weren't caught speeding, it wasn't an immediate concern.

'We need a laptop,' Jack said, after half an hour in which Esther closed her eyes, but probably didn't sleep. 

'Any particular type?' Esther asked. 'They had some in the store,' she explained.

'Not windows if possible,' Jack said, and lay back on the seat, out of view of the casual observer, as Esther made her way back into the Walmart.

'Internet?' Esther asked when she returned, taking the laptop out of its box and handing it to Jack who had propped himself up against the car door.

'Yeah, internet next,' Jack confirmed, 'but not for long.' 

They set off again, heading steadily north east. Jack was aware that the pain was slowing his thinking, but he was slowly putting together the message he would need to send.

They drove on for a few miles, until they saw a café that promised free wifi. Jack struggled to stand, grimacing through the pain. He handed Esther the laptop and, by dint of hooking her arm through his, he could lean against her unobtrusively. They ordered coffees and settled at a table at the back of café.

'Let me show you something,' Jack said once they'd logged on to the café's wifi.

'What's this?' Esther asked, confused, as Jack typed in commands and the background changed to strange graphical patterns.

'Here,' Jack said, pulling up the cryptic channel.

Esther frowned, confused: ' _Even though the gods define mortality, some things should be treated carefully_ ', really made no sense, even if one assumed that it had some context in relation to Jack and the miracle.

'A useful, but very rarely used piece of the Torchwood system: cryptic messaging. It's also encrypted with something far stronger than RSA, but that doesn't prevent people from looking over your shoulder,' Jack explained.

'Hence the lack of history,' Esther stated. 'So who sent the message?' she asked after a moment.

'Ianto Jones,' Jack said softly. 'Don't say the name,' he ordered, his voice still soft but the steel beneath the instruction unmistakeable,'he's officially dead.'

'OK,' Esther filed away the difference between Jack's very active and often noisy protection of Gwen Cooper and this quiet, understated, but clearly implacable determination to keep Ianto Jones safe, for later consideration.

'He's in far better condition than me and will be able to organise our trip across the Atlantic. I'll get him to text the details to your phone.' He fell silent for a minute. 'But I can't tell him how badly injured I am, he'd panic - actually, he probably wouldn't - but I don't want to upset him.'

Jack tapped away quickly, and Esther watched his fingers since nothing appeared on the screen: 'Need passage for one plus one from US to Cardiff. Currently heading from Nevada to Salt Lake City, then east, one driver. Gwen Cooper home already. Text US (185) 149-6654' she saw him type. She wasn't entirely sure she'd caught every keystroke, but she'd deduced sensible words knowing what they hoped to achieve. 

Esther admitted to being slightly disappointed when no reply came immediately.

'It's after midnight in Cardiff,' Jack said, looking at his watch, 'there won't be a reply for a while.'

'So what do we do?' Esther asked, making a conscious effort to again suppress the panic that driving had suppressed but which now wanted to bubble to the surface.

'Sleep, or carry on driving.'

'I need to sleep, dare we risk a motel?' Esther admitted.

'No, sorry,' Jack looked sincerely apologetic on seeing Esther's wistful look at the thought of a shower.

They drove out of the small town for a few miles and found a quiet lay-by. They caught a few hours unrestful sleep, had something to eat and changed Jack's dressing again before setting off as the sun rose. When they reached the outskirts of Salt Lake City, they found another internet café and were disappointed that there was still nothing from Ianto.

'What do we do?' Esther wondered once they had returned to the car.

'I think we need to give him time,' Jack said, refusing to admit to his growing worry that Ianto would not be able to help them before the CIA caught up with them.

'Which means what, exactly?' Esther prompted.

'Patience,' Jack said. 'And I think we need to stay put for a few hours at least, though it might be as well to ditch the car before we leave here.'

'OK.' They drove off again, finding a full parking lot near the business district where a car stationary for several hours would be unobtrusive. Half an hour later, Esther's phone beeped and the message confirmed that staying in Salt Lake City had been the correct course of action.


	4. Being useful

Ianto had continued to keep a strict eye on the messaging system, logging in every twelve hours, but still schooling himself to keep traffic to a minimum. He bounced the signal off several satellites and chose the most disconnected places for the point of origin, favouring those that would indicate a completely different time zone to the one he currently inhabited. Ten days or so passed without anything new, until one morning he logged on and saw a message sent only a few hours earlier:

'Impending and continued travel into the sunrise for a god and a goddess cannot be easy to arrange. Originating from the silvered younger sister of a virgin state, also born in battle, with initial target coinciding with that of Brigham Young. Perpetual four-wheeled motion cannot be achieved. Their Greek compatriot has made the crossing already. Communication via far west messenger AHEAD IF FED best.'

This was another message that required some serious attention so Ianto copied it down in shorthand and logged out before he examined it carefully and had a quick look at telephone number conventions: apparently 07 was not the distinguishing feature of US mobile phone numbers. Jack and a woman - possibly Esther Drummond - needed to travel from the US to the UK. And, since the request had come to him, it was not something they could arrange openly, so they had to arrive in secret. The last sentence also was fairly clear: the capital letters presumably indicating a phone number. Given that he'd asked for a simple alpha-numeric coding, the obvious candidates were a=1 or a=0; his previous search indicated that a=1 was the correct code, though he'd need to add +1. He just hoped he was right: these were messages that could not afford to go astray.

There seemed to be several references to places, so he knew he should minimise the possible internet trail. He decided to risk a slow reply and the video surveillance of going into town by resorting to the public library, although since he visited the library several times a week, this was not an unusual activity. In addition, an advantage of the library was that the internal CCTV covered the service desk and the door so his researches would be far less traceable than even the most thoroughly erased internet search made on the most secure protocols. He started by digging into the history of the American states - starting with the western ones since the last he'd heard was that Jack was on the Pacific coast. Silver and battle born - that was Nevada, he cross checked the Virginias for a related history: West Virginia - another civil war state, it had become part of the Union in 1863, a year before Nevada: the elder sister indeed. Brigham Young was harder to find, though he expected that the stopping point would be relatively close to Nevada, perhaps in one of the neighbouring states, most likely Utah to the east, but that was still a lot of ground to examine.

He closed his eyes, unwilling to resort to a traceable internet search. Brigham Young, assuming that the name was related to the history and exploration of the American west, he was expecting something to turn up in the 19th century, perhaps before the Civil War. Brigham Young, where had he seen that name? He thought through what he knew without success. Then he thought through what he didn't know for certain. 

There - a stray thread - Young, possibly Brigham had featured in the weird, disjointed digression outlining the motivations for the events in 'A Study in Scarlet'. He browsed through the fiction section of the library, pleased when he came up with a copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes series, skimming through the appropriate sections, he soon found the name and the context. He slowed down slightly, determined not to miss the clue he needed. Ah, Salt Lake City, the city of the Mormons, founded under the direction of Brigham Young. He closed the book and thought about what he needed to do next: Jack and Esther Drummond, one of whom was probably injured, both quite possibly without any identification and almost certainly on the run from various well funded and viscous American authorities, needed safe and untraceable passage from Salt Lake City to the UK. That he could arrange.

He checked the time of the message: nearly nine hours ago now. Returning to an atlas, he looked up the distance from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City. Some quick calculations lead him to conclude that, even if they'd driven most of the way across Nevada, they were probably almost at Salt Lake City, and it was more likely that they were already there. He pulled out one of the four unregistered pay-as-you-go phones he'd bought at various times and sent a quick text: 'Sit tight in SLC. IJ.'

Ianto spent the rest of the day calling in favours and contacts, arranging something rather less traceable than a journey on a transatlantic liner or a flight with British Airways. The perpetual motion had him slightly concerned, and he was not too displeased to find an unavoidable eight hour window in Boston, for which he arranged a visit to a surgeon willing to work outside of his official remit. He fervently hoped that, since Jack was the only other person who should know about the cryptic messaging channel, it had been him who had sent the message and, even if injured, the detour in Boston would ensure he would be able to survive a less than civilised sea journey.

It was dark by the time he had everything organised to his satisfaction and he could send Esther a series of texts, swapping between phones, outlining the plan.

'Now to meet the right person,' Esther said, trepidation filling her as she and Jack read the series of texts that outlined their upcoming journey to the UK; uncomfortable was just scraping the surface of what it could not fail to be.


	5. A sea journey

Esther was miserable. In her efforts to ensure that Jack stayed dry, she'd gotten drenched through as they'd made the short interminable journey from a local fishing boat to the cargo vessel that was now slowly bearing them towards the Old World. She couldn't decided whether the she was relieved by the fact that the engine noise was barely a dull throb or whether she would have preferred the continuous noise over the pitch and lurch that came from their cramped quarters in the bows. She did her best, tending to Jack and forcing herself to choke down portions of bread that were at least equal to Jack's.

Jack groaned slightly and she returned to adjust his blankets, trying to make him more comfortable. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead, surreptitiously checking for fever; to her continued relief there was none. So long as she continued to keep the wound clean and dry, as instructed by the doctor who had been prevailed upon to remove the bullet, it seemed that he would heal.

'So,' she said quietly, two meals and an unknown amount of time later, after she'd changed Jack's dressing and settled him as comfortably as possible in the cramped quarters of the freighter, 'tell me about Ianto Jones.'

'What do you know?' Jack asked, aware that while he'd assured Ianto that the CIA copies had been destroyed, and he'd retconned Esther after she'd seen them, given the treatment they'd received when interacting with the CIA and the revelations in the lead up to Friedkin's arrest and subsequent suicide, it seemed likely that there was at least one partial copy of the information about Torchwood still in the CIA. He wondered whether any of the information had reached Esther.

'Ianto Jones, born August 1983, joined Torchwood One just under two years before and Torchwood Three shortly after the Battle of Canary Wharf. Official records have him killed in April 2010, something to do with a pub called The House of the Dead,' Esther summarised. 'Evidently the last part is false.'

'It sounds like you know everything you need to know, then,' Jack said, deciding to put off asking about how she'd come by the information.

'But what exactly did he do with Torchwood?' Esther asked. 'The file said he was a junior researcher in London, but there were no details of his role in Cardiff. Others had specialisms, a medic, technology; Gwen was police liaison and regular field officer, but Ianto - nothing.'

'His role was always ill-defined,' Jack admitted, before deciding to offer something that he suspected would not really satisfy Esther's curiosity. 'He did what was needed and kept the place running.' The tone of the last sentence and Jack's deliberately closed eyes told Esther that the subject of what Ianto did, and the place he held in Torchwood three was not something that Jack was going to elaborate on and that she would have to wait until she met the man himself - if she met him - to find out more.

It might have been a day later, it might have been a week later, but eventually the crew member who had so obligingly been providing them with bread and clean water knocked on the door to inform them that they had half an hour to prepare for their imminent transfer to a local fishing vessel that would take them their last few miles to Britain. Esther shuddered: her jeans had only just dried out. But there was nothing for it; they needed to reach Cardiff - Wales - undetected, and they could not do that from a boat that was registered as coming from abroad. They half-supported, half-carried a still weak Jack along the passageway that led to the back of the vessel, and propped him on a chair to wait for the bump and greetings that would announce the arrival of the small boat that would take them onwards.

They were still below decks, but it seemed dark out. Esther checked her watch and then Jack's, but the times were different and didn't make sense. Her frown cleared after a moment when she realised that Jack must have set his watch again when they reached Boston, but she hadn't. She wouldn't have sworn to it, but four am did make some sort of sense. That said, since she had no idea where they were - the middle of the ever broadening Atlantic, for all she knew - although Ianto's information had specified off the Cornish coast as their point of transfer.

A muffled thump and a new voice told her that the time to move had come. She stirred Jack, who seemed to have dozed off, and helped him to sand. He groaned when the door opened and the wind buffeted him, putting strain on his wound as he struggled against the gusts. Stronger, rougher, but not entirely ungentle arms came to help and he bit his lip as he was lowered into the small motor boat that bobbed next to the enormous freighter. Esther could not hide her fear, but bravely held the offered hands and jumped down when the man in the boat below nodded. He caught her with what seemed to be the ease of long practice and sam her seated beside Jack under a securely fastened tarpaulin before he raised a hand and the single rope holding the boat to the freighter was released. A minute's bobbing brought them away from under the looming hull of the freighter before their new skipper put the engine into gear and the made their uncomfortable, lurching way towards a set of distant lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6 is in progress, and the last two chapters are already done. With any luck, I'll find some time at the weekend and this will be complete next week.


	6. Wobbly land

'You look terrible, Sir,' Ianto said conversationally, dispensing with pleasantries as he greeted Jack as he stepped off the small fishing boat that had brought him and Esther on the final stage of their journey into Milford Haven.

'Feel it and no doubt smell it too,' Jack replied, somewhat grimly. 'May I introduce Miss Esther Drummond, formerly an analyst with the CIA.' He gestured Esther forward and Ianto shook the offered hand.

'Pleased to meet you, Esther,' he said politely. They stood in silence for a minute, uncertain.

'What's the plan, Ianto?' Jack asked eventually, not entirely sure how much longer he and Esther would be able to stay upright with the ground seeming to sway beneath their feet like the deck of a ship tossing in the sea.

'For you two? Showers and some clean clothes,' Ianto said. He turned to Esther: 'I'm afraid I had to guess your sizes, and erred on the side of getting both a larger and smaller size. I'm not certain whether anything I've got will be to your taste, though,' he admitted with a sheepish grin, 'but they will be clean at least.'

'I hope you got me something other than a t-shirt and a tracksuit,' Jack interjected.

'I'm not daft, Jack,' Ianto countered, more sharply than strictly necessary, but Jack's comment had been rather childish. Esther was curious, but Ianto didn't elaborate. 'Anyway,' he continued after a moment, 'if you would like to follow me, I'll leave you to shower and bring you your clothes while you're at it.' He led the way over to the small harbour master's office, leaving them with instructions to leave a pile their old clothes outside their respective cubicles and that he would be back in a few minutes with towels and clean clothes.

Esther stood unmoving under the warm water of the shower, relishing the stream of water cascading across her skin and washing away the salt and sweat and grime of the last ten days. She heard someone come in and the rustle of cloth and plastic suggested it was probably Ianto picking up their old clothes and leaving bags of new clothes. The sounds, and the appearance of two towels over the top of her cubicle door, reminded her that they could not afford to waste time, and she reluctantly focused on washing, thankful for the bottle of shower gel that was provided. She washed her hair too, not caring that it would be in a horrible tangle and that the shower gel was not going to help with anything other than the grime. She needed to feel clean, if only for ten minutes.

Turning off the water, she gathered her hair up in the smaller towel before drying herself off quickly. With the larger towel wrapped securely around her and cautiously opened the cubicle door. The corridor seemed deserted, so she took two quick steps to the bag sitting on the bench opposite, noting that her shoes were where she's left them. She grabbed the bag before turning to return to her cubicle. Her retreat was arrested by the sight of Jack calmly walking out of his cubicle, stark naked, towel raised to his hair and the wound on his side showing angry red but not bleeding. He didn't speak, merely raised an eyebrow at her shocked expression. She swallowed, knowing she was bright red with embarrassment. At Jack's easy smile, she came back to her senses and completed her retreat to the security of her cubicle.

She hung the carrier bag on the hook on the back of the door and took a few steadying breaths before she proceeded to investigate its contents: everything except shoes - in her size and one size larger. She was impressed and pleased with Ianto's thoroughness - even the bras looked to be almost the right size, though she hoped she would get a chance to do a bit of shopping for something more to her taste. 'Oh,' she whispered, her pleasure increased further, when, having tried on items of clothing as she unearthed them - barring socks since the floor of the cubicle was damp - she found a bottle of dry shampoo, some hairbands and a hairbrush sharing the bottom of the bag with a can of deodorant, a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.

'Jack, are you decent?' she called out softly once she'd made use of the deodorant and tucked the less well fitting clothes back into the carrier bag, making sure the toiletries were at the top.

'I'm always decent,' Jack replied.

'You know what I mean,' Esther told him, slightly annoyed after her previous embarrassment.

'Yes, I'm decent,' Jack's tone was resigned, less cheerful than a moment ago, and Esther reflected that he'd probably been flirting. She shook her head - really, Jack Harkness was worse than Rex.

She opened the door and was relieved to see that Jack was, indeed, more or less fully clothed, although, like her, he was also currently barefoot. He seemed to be repacking the first aid kit that had hung on the wall next to the door, which would explain the couple of sharp breaths she'd heard as she tried on her new clothes. She walked past in silence, and set up at one of the sinks. Teeth brushed, she turned to her hair, spraying the dry shampoo before running the brush through her damp hair and gathering it up into a ponytail.

'Feeling half way human again?' Jack asked as she sat next to him on the bench to dry her feet and put on socks and her old shoes.

'Yes,' she agreed readily, 'Ianto really thought of everything.'

'That's Ianto for you,' Jack said, and somehow, despite the tension in his voice, Esther got the impression that Jack was happier than she'd known him to be. 'Right,' he continued after a pause, 'we should probably convince him that I'm still upright and find out exactly how we're to get to Gwen.'

They left the quiet of the shower block arm in arm, and Esther was aware that Jack was leaning rather heavily on her though he was clearly trying not to. Ianto greeted them with a coffee and a pastry for each of them.

'We should get going,' he said, 'I doubt you've been followed, but one never knows and there's not much time to lose. We can talk in the car.'

Jack was glad that Ianto hadn't commented on his state, though he was sure that it had been noticed - the weight he was putting on Esther's arm could not have escaped the young man's observation.

'I thought you didn't have a driving licence?' Jack said, concerned that Ianto was taking unnecessary risks.

'Needs must, Jack,' Ianto said, sounding resigned.

'So tell me, what's the plan?' Jack asked after they'd driven in silence for eleven minutes, and seven minutes after he'd finished his pastry.

'I've a car waiting for you a bit outside Swansea,' Ianto said. 'Gwen's at her parents,' he continued after a pause during which they joined the main road signposted to Cardiff and Swansea. 'The house is watched from across the street,' he warned, 'you'd best deal with that first.'

'How?' Esther asked, 'killing doesn't work and would only alert them that something was going on.'

'Amnesia pills,' Ianto said simply. He glanced at Jack briefly before turning his attention back to the road. 'You left some when you visited,' he sighed before continuing. 'I don't know whether you made them there while I was out that day or whether you had them with you before, but I found a bag with a couple of pills at the back of the cutlery drawer when I decided it was time for a thorough tidy a few days after I was back from London. There were two more bags, better hidden on the top shelf of one of the cupboards: all labelled B67 - in total two dozen doses of two different strengths.'

'I wanted them safe, and reckoned your house was as good as anywhere, but thought you'd probably appreciate knowing,' Jack explained. 'What have you done with them?' he asked after a moment.

'There are half a dozen doses of each strength in the glove pocket, the rest are where you left them,' Ianto told him. 'I thought it best that you were able to access some on your own if necessary since you clearly have a key.' After Jack's departure to Heathrow, and before his own to London, he'd checked the house thoroughly, to see how Jack had gotten in. With no evidence of any sort of forced or opportunistic entry by an unconventional means, he'd concluded that Jack must have had at least one key to the place. He'd not bothered changing the locks though - he'd dared a little bit of digging in the quiet days while Jack was stuck on a boat, and had found that it was one of several unregistered properties that had been bought for Torchwood by Queen Victoria.

Jack opened the glove pocket and pulled out the two bags of pills, slipping them into his coat pockets.

He cocked an eyebrow at Ianto when he saw the gun.

'You might need some means of persuasion,' Ianto said calmly. 'I've another back at mine, so don't worry, I won't be unprotected.'

'Thank you, Ianto,' Jack said softly.

'I'm sorry it's not a Webley, sir, but that would have been a rather difficult request to justify.'

'I think I have to agree,' although Esther, listening keenly and wondering about the subtext of the conversation, could hear the resignation in Jack's voice.

They drove in silence, Esther thoughtful as the truth of Jack's statement of Ianto keeping everything running came to light. If his role in Torchwood Three had been anything like the position he was playing now, his job really had been indescribable - a general factotum in the highest sense. Jack was thankful that Ianto's attention seemed to be absorbed entirely by the road in front of them, it allowed him to sit back and relax, appreciate the lush green Pembrokeshire countryside - a far cry from the aridity of Nevada and Utah or the claustrophobia of Boston's towering concrete buildings - and meant that he did not have to worry about how much Ianto had seen of the pain his wound was causing him.

After an hour of smooth roads, the pulled off onto a small track signposted to a caravan park. Jack could not suppress a small squeak as the car jolted.

'Sorry, sir,' Ianto said softly and slowed the car further.

'It's nothing, really, the US was far worse,' Jack managed, trying to grin, but aware that it was probably closer to a grimace. 'For a country that is obsessed with driving, their roads are really rough.'

Ianto said nothing further until they reached a set of farm buildings where he pulled up next to a lone car parked in the shadow of a barn. They unclipped their seat belts, but made no move to get out of the car.

'You're injured,' Ianto told Jack firmly, breaking the silence. He drew two boxes of painkillers from his pocket and handed them and a bottle of water to Jack with a pointed look. 'Took a bullet to the side, if you want my guess. Thank you for looking after him, by the way,' he said, turning to Esther on the back seat.

'Why didn't you say anything?' Jack wondered, having swallowed two of each type of painkiller.

'Because there didn't seem to be anything to say,' Ianto told him flatly, meeting Jack's eyes and not hiding the pain or concern in his own. 'You wouldn't appreciate me fussing, and I had a job to do.'

Esther was impressed: Ianto clearly cared deeply for Jack - whether as a friend and colleague or more was an open, but relatively unimportant, question - but this was pure professionalism, setting his personal concerns to one side and focussing on the task at hand. She knew few who could do that as effectively as Ianto had just done, and was reminded of Gwen, and how she'd ended a phone call with Jack for contact with her husband and daughter. She could not blame Gwen's willingness to talk to her family, but the manner had been somewhat less than courteous.

'So what now?' Jack asked after a long moment.

'You take that car and go and see Gwen, then get out of the way,' Ianto's tone was firm, allowing no room for arguments or discussion. 'I assume you know where the other undocumented Torchwood properties are,' he continued more gently. 'You need to recover, and that's going to take time.' He sighed. 'I hate to say it, but, though the world might go to hell in the interim, we're probably going to need that time to work out what we need to do.'

'We already know some of that,' Jack said, 'it seems my blood is somehow the trigger for the miracle, perhaps it will now untrigger it.'

'So another argument for time.' Ianto ran a hand through his hair in frustration, the action destroying its previous neatness.

'Rex will be seeing what he can find out about the three families. I think he's been reinstated into the CIA. Friedkin's confession will probably have cleared him,' Esther added, trying to add hope to what looked to be an unremittingly grim outlook.

'And yet another argument,' Ianto said, before opening his door and getting out of the car. Jack and Esther followed his example.

'Let me know where you go next,' Ianto said, shaking Esther's hand. 'I'll come and join you,' he continued, 'be more use than sitting around pretending I'm dead.' He glanced at Jack, already sitting in the passenger seat of the blue Ford Fiesta he'd found for them, but the other man's expression gave nothing away. 'I'm sorry I couldn't find you an automatic, but Jack should be able to talk you through gear changes; clutch is on the left, ABC: accelerator, brake, clutch; gears basically increase with speed. You'll need this too,' he added, handing her one of his unregistered phones and a piece of paper with the numbers of his three remaining mobile phones. Esther nodded and tucked the slip of paper and the phone into the small bag that had been sitting on the driver's seat. She got into the car and adjusted the seat and mirrors before winding down the window.

'Remember to drive on the left,' Ianto told her, 'and try to prevent Jack from over doing it.' Jack did deign to glare at him at that, letting him know he'd heard. Ianto merely shrugged and stepped back so she could drive off, raising a hand in farewell. He returned to the car he'd driven from the docks and got back in, driving slowly down the track, and stopping again at the caravan park. He checked the car, making sure they hadn't left anything and then wiped door handles, steering wheel and gear stick; the car's owners would use it soon enough, he'd just borrowed it for a few hours, but there was no harm in taking some basic precautions to slow down tracing if he was betrayed: DNA still took a bit longer to process than fingerprints. After posting the keys through the letterbox of one of the caravans, he strolled along the main thoroughfare between the rows of caravans until he came to another car, this one a small black Peugeot. He reached under the front of the bonnet and retrieved the keys from their place before getting in and setting off in the same direction he'd been going in. A few minutes later he came out on a road: turning left, he set off north.


	7. Absconding

On his return to his house, Ianto started to prepare to leave it again. He carefully packed up everything that was anything other than entirely innocuous: the guns, the remaining amnesia pills, all the various IDs he'd accumulated, everything. He didn't know where Jack would head to, and carefully logged out of and set up all the security levels of the Torchwood server. There were no plans to use it again anytime soon and he didn't want anyone other than himself or Jack to get access. Three days later he received a text message with a name and a county. He rolled his eyes and added his winter coat and some mosquito repellant to the pile of things that had been accumulating behind the sofa in the rarely used living room.

He frowned, examining the pile. While it did not consist of much, it was still considerably more than he could easily or unobtrusively carry. He wondered if he could leave behind either shirts or one of the three suits and decided that while he could, he really didn't want to. Jeans were all very well for being inconspicuous in a small town, but for anything that required proper focus, he knew he'd feel considerably more prepared in a suit. The cafetière and stove top espresso maker - really a Moka pot, but the difference was marginal and good coffee was still assured - were not being left behind.

He hauled down an ancient suitcase that he half suspected had belonged to a member of Torchwood a hundred years earlier, but which he'd found in an exploration of the dusty space under the eaves that could be flatteringly described as the attic. With a little care, everything fitted in, the suits in their carriers nicely protected from getting crumpled and the clothing providing padding for the less socially acceptable items. While that dealt with a certain amount of the conspicuousness, the large suitcase would be difficult to hide. But, Ianto realised, two and a half cups of coffee later - which was three cups too many - that's what taxis were for.

After careful consideration, he decided that the least memorable time of day to get a taxi to a contractor's yard would be early morning - even with the case, he could reasonably be going to work there, Ianto made the booking and dozed fitfully until early morning. He glimpsed the sunrise as he put out the rubbish and had just completed a final check of the house when the doorbell rang to announce that his taxi had arrived.

'Got a lot of things to fix at work,' he said in answer to the driver's questioning look, letting his accent broaden to something more fitting to his rough clothes and heavy boots. 'This is the only thing I own that's big enough to put them all in. I think it must have been my grandmother's grandmother's,' he added shaking his head in the believable half-confusion of someone who doesn't care to consider that sort of timescale too closely.

The driver nodded in understanding and waited while Ianto locked the house and carried the case down to the car.

Left at the entrance to the contractor's yard, Ianto carried the case so it was just behind the gate. He then strolled casually through the yard, waving at the manager as he passed. A couple of minutes later, he was back, driving the small black Peugeot carefully across the rough ground. He pulled over next to the manager and handed him a neat stack of twenty pound notes.

'Thanks for letting me keep the car here,' he said politely.

'Not a problem,' came the brusque reply.

'You won't be seeing me for a while.' Despite knowing that the contractor was doing good business, Ianto felt slightly responsible for the loss of several hundred pounds undeclared income per year.

'Don't you worry, Mr. Jones,' the manager cracked a smile. 'We'll manage quite handily enough.' He seemed impatient to get back to sorting out the tractors for the day: it was a busy time of the year with silage and early harvest requiring all the hours that the long days gave them. Ianto put the car in gear and drove over to where he had left the case. After putting it into the boot, he raised a hand in farewell once more and set off on his way north.


	8. Typical weather

'More rain,' Esther said glumly, unable to sleep.

'Yep, that's Scotland,' Jack replied from the other side of the room, though his cheer was clearly forced - and not just because of the dull ache from his half-healed wound.

The sunset had been pale and watery and the rain had set in around midnight, the heavy patter making sleep difficult. A slightly different rumble was gone before it could be properly registered. However the sharp, insistent knocking on the door that followed a minute later was not drowned out by the rain. Esther got up with a start, slipping on shoes and taking the gun Jack held out for her. She opened the door cautiously, gun gripped tightly behind her back in her free hand.

'Ianto?' she gasped when she recognised their visitor.

'Yep, that's me. Any chance of not getting any wetter?' Ianto raised an eyebrow, well aware that disturbing two people who were on the run at two a.m. in the morning was definitely not an endearing course of action.

'Of course, come in,' Esther said, opening the door and shutting it quickly once Ianto was inside.

A week after Ianto's arrival, as the sun started to set, he and Esther were standing in the small kitchen area of the cottage, compiling a shopping list for the next day.

'You love him, don't you?' Esther asked suddenly.

'Shh,' Ianto laid a finger to his lips, glancing furtively at the room beyond. 'He doesn't know.'

'You've never told him? But you were together for a good while.'

'No, I never did, it wasn't part of our relationship and Jack, well, let's say he's lived a long time and - before this Miracle occurred - was going to live for much longer.'

Esther nodded: 'You were afraid that the knowledge would be a burden to him.'

'Something like that,' Ianto agreed. There was no need to go into the whole minefield of how one could define their relationship: as he'd told his sister, he'd never known what it was - as he hadn't told his sister, it had got to the stage where the lack of clarity had started to bother him a bit, even though Jack had agreed readily enough that they were 'together', whatever that meant. Esther was considerably quieter than Gwen, something that made it easier to let his guard down around her, although Gwen had also worked out his feelings for Jack. 'For now, I've just got to be there for him, and let him know that I accept him and his past, knowing that they've brought him to the person he is now.' Hell, that was all he ever _could_ do, he thought.

'Never asking anything for yourself.'

'You're one to talk, Esther,' Ianto told her. He'd spent a good amount of the last week when he'd not actively been watching Jack quietly talking with Esther and finding out about both herself and Rex.

'Point taken,' Esther acknowledged gracefully.

Esther tidied the already tidy kitchen before she told Ianto that she might as well do the shopping today as tomorrow and went out. Ianto waved goodbye and returned to his seat by Jack's bedside, wishing he could to more than gaze at the familiar face currently tight with pain.

'Hey, Ianto, I can feel you staring,' Jack said after a while though his eyes remained closed.

'Sorry.'

'No, it's OK. I know you're worried about me.' Jack opened his eyes to look at Ianto, just catching the transition of Ianto's expression from grim concern to something blander. 'Hey,' he said very softly, 'you don't need to hide from me.' He raised a hand, wanting to reassure Ianto somehow, and was pleased, if surprised, when Ianto caught it in both of his.

'I can't do this, Jack,' Ianto said, eyes tightly closed and elbows on his knees as he rested his forehead against Jack's hand imprisoned between his own.

'What can't you do?' Jack inquired.

'See you like this and pretend it's not tearing my heart out,' Ianto confessed. 'What we agreed, when this all started, was necessary, but I'm damned if I'm going to deny wanting more.'

'And this after what? a week in my company?' Jack tried for flippancy but knew he failed miserably.

'Seven days, fifteen hours and some odd minutes,' Ianto replied.

'And the only reason you don't know the minutes is that you've not looked at your watch in the last ten,' Jack retorted.

'Yeah,' Ianto's tone was thoroughly miserable.

Jack struggled a bit, but managed to sit up and shift over on the bed, wincing when his motion tugged on his slowly healing wound, but not objecting to Ianto's refusal to let go of his hand, even if it would have made the entire manoeuvre considerably easier.

'Come here,' he said, nodding to the space next to him.

Ianto nodded silently, letting go of Jack's hand and carefully untying and removing his shoes before he gently took the space indicated. Jack immediately slipped his right arm around his waist, holding him close.

'Shh,' Jack said, when Ianto took a deep shuddering breath and seemed to be readying himself to either speak or cry, the former being more likely. 'I know I haven't treated you fairly for a long time, I'm the one who owes apologies and explanations, not you.'

'Jack,' Ianto started objecting.

'No, Ianto. Now is not the time for you to be all noble and self-denying.' He reached over with his free hand and took hold of Ianto's left hand, placing a kiss on the knuckles before holding it against his chest. 'In Washington, before we decided to spend two days driving across the whole country, we had what was effectively a bust up. Rex was adamant that the CIA would help us if asked - which they didn't, but I can't entirely blame him for trying. Grow up with that sort of engrained trust in and reliance on authority, and you have to experience betrayal to know that you won't be backed up. I should know, I've a two year gap in my memories from just before I left the time agency. Anyway, I was mortal, the entire town was going mad with the knowledge of immortality, morality got thrown out the window. I decided to join them, leaving Gwen and Esther to try and sort things out.' He glanced at Ianto, who'd closed his eyes to listen.

'You got drunk,' Ianto stated, when Jack didn't continue immediately.

'Yeah, and slept with someone - the bartender. I think his name was Brad,' Jack admitted sourly, more than half expecting Ianto to pull away, but was surprised when the reaction was a soft laugh.

'I know you, Jack, you're an intergalactic playboy from the future,' Ianto said, turning slightly to look at Jack. 'He was undoubtedly attractive. What else was I to expect?' Jack frowned, not sure whether he should be pleased with Ianto's acceptance or worried at the lack of reaction. Seeing Jack's concern, Ianto become more serious. 'Seriously, Jack,' he said, 'so long as we're honest with each other - so long as you're honest with me - we'll be fine. I can't say I'll like it, but I'd rather know than not. So thank you for letting me know.'

Jack could only pull Ianto close to him and place another kiss on the knuckles of the hand he held, swearing internally that it would be a damn rare occurrence anyway, certainly now that Ianto had made it clear that, while their relationship would be built on a strong friendship and would need time, he wanted more than simple friendship. He wondered exactly how far Ianto would push eventually, afraid they'd return to the problem of labels, but aware that Ianto could always surprise him. They stayed still as long minutes passed until Ianto squirmed to tuck one leg half under the other so he could face Jack more directly. He raised his free hand to gently stroke Jack's face before leaning in to place a lingering kiss to Jack's lips. Jack was glad when Ianto only pulled away far enough for his face to be in focus.

'OK?' Ianto asked, his tone concerned, even as he smiled.

'Yeah,' Jack managed, surprised at how rough his voice sounded. 'Rather more than OK really.'

'You need to rest,' Ianto reminded him, thumb idly tracing the edge of the dark ring under Jack's left eye.

'So no shenanigans,' Jack said, anticipating the end of Ianto's sentence.

'Yep, you've got it, no shenanigans,' Ianto confirmed with a small smile, dropping a light kiss on the tip of Jack's nose before he sat back again, legs again stretching out next to Jack's.

When Esther returned half an hour later, it was to find Jack propped up against the corner of the wall with Ianto sat next to him, his head on Jack's shoulder. Jack raised a finger to his lips when Esther entered and closed his eyes to indicate that Ianto was sleeping. She put the two shopping bags down carefully in the kitchen and came over.

'Finally,' she whispered. 'He's barely closed his eyes since he got here.'

'We should get him lying down,' Jack murmured. 'If we don't, his neck'll be killing him when he wakes up.'

Esther nodded in agreement, and Jack helped her remove Ianto's jacket, tie and belt, before loosening the top few buttons of his shirt.

'Hush,' Jack whispered when Ianto stirred, 'we're just making it so you'll sleep more comfortably.' They slid Ianto down so he was stretched out and Jack mirrored the action, smiling his thanks as Esther found a cushion for him to tuck into the space left by the pillow Ianto was currently using and then covered the pair with a soft throw. 

'I'll be in the front room if you need me,' Esther said softly and left the two men to their rest. When she poked her head back in a few hours later, Ianto was still asleep, having turned on to his side to face Jack, his right hand resting against Jack's chest. Jack's eyes fluttered open as he became aware of her presence and he smiled contentedly. Esther frowned, silently telling Jack to sleep himself. He seemed to understand her message because he laid a hand over Ianto's and closed his eyes.


	9. Gunsmiths

Ianto slept for nearly twelve hours, waking slowly when the birds started singing with the dawn. As he gained consciousness, he realised that he was neither in his own bed nor alone. He quickly rolled away, his eagerness to escape almost landing him on the floor. His movement was arrested by a strong hand laying hold of his upper arm, and his huff of surprise was covered by the owner of the hand hissing in pain.

'Ianto?' a voice ground out, bringing Ianto back into the present and refreshing the memory of the previous evening's conversations.

'Sorry Jack,' Ianto murmured sleepily, forcing his muscles to relax and easing himself gently back onto the bed before sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge. 'You really should have just let me roll out,' he chided, running a hand through his hair and grimacing at the fact that he'd clearly fallen asleep fully clothed, although he did appreciate waking up without jacket, tie and belt.

The day passed quietly, mostly spent indoors despite the sunny weather that asked to be enjoyed, but the house was meant to be uninhabited. They'd just finished dinner and were sitting companionably at the table, sipping the green tea Ianto had made for them as a change from coffee.

'You said something once about your blood being the trigger for this miracle and that you wondered whether it might also untrigger it,' Ianto observed mildly, breaking the comfortable silence.

'Yeah, that's what Angelo's granddaughter said. I've yet to figure out what that actually means, but it certainly does help explain why people have kept trying to kill me.' Despite his nonchalant tone, both Ianto and Esther could clearly see that Jack had been dwelling on the problem and had worked himself to the state of being thoroughly worried.

'But the only lead we have are these three families,' Esther added, 'who are untraceable.'

'And everywhere,' Jack added grimly, thinking of the explosion that had killed Olivia Colasanto.

Ianto hummed in agreement. It certainly did seem to be a most confusing and opaque case. And yet, he started to wonder whether they weren't missing the point.

'Do they actually matter?' he asked suddenly into the quiet that had fallen.

'What do you mean?' Jack asked, confused.

'To undo the miracle,' Ianto explained. 'Does it matter who the families are?'

Esther frowned, thinking over what they'd pieced together. 'Perhaps not,' she admitted, 'it would prevent further mischief and probably safeguard Jack, but to actually undo the miracle?' She paused considering the question in more detail.

'If we knew how to undo the miracle, then we could deal with the three families afterwards,' Jack said. 'But the only clue is that it has something to do with my blood.'

'But your blood's not special,' Ianto objected. 'When you came back, Owen wouldn't leave you alone until you let him take an obscenely large sample and analysed it in every way he knew. Your blood's just like ours; nothing special.'

'I know,' Jack sighed, 'and I knew that before - sure, Owen ran more tests, but every head of Torchwood wanted me poked and prodded and analysed to try to understand my immortality.'

'Sorry,' Esther interjected hesitantly, 'but Jack's mortal while the rest of the world is immortal. No matter what can or cannot be found by analysing his blood, the best lead we have is that Jack's blood is the trigger - whether as a catalyst or as something else, is probably as relevant as the families. But since we don't know what we're up against, having a supply of proper mortal - Jack's - blood might be a wise precaution.'

Jack groaned: 'So now you're going to stick needles into me too?'

'Saving the world, Jack,' Esther reminded him gently.

'It's what you do, sir,' Ianto contributed.

Jack threw up his hands in mock surrender. 'One secret weapon: the blood of a wounded, mortal man,' he announced dramatically.

'You've got it,' Esther told him and stood to take their dishes through to the kitchen.

'You OK, Jack?' Ianto asked softly once Esther had left them in peace.

'Not really, but I'll have to be,' Jack said, holding to their agreement about truth-telling.

'You let me know if you need to talk,' Ianto said firmly, and Jack nodded. 'I can help you stand up to others or dissemble much more effectively if I know both the party line and the truth.'

'I currently wouldn't want to consider any party line,' Jack said grimly. He and Esther had caught a few snatches of the news when they'd stopped at Gwen's parents. The indications had been far from cheering.

'You know what I mean,' Ianto said softly, eyes closed in mild exasperation.

'I know what you mean,' Jack said seriously, reaching out and placing a hand over Ianto's.


	10. Bringing Death back

The three of them stood staring into The Blessing, the crack through the centre of the Earth.

'What the hell is that thing?' Gwen asked, turning to Jack.

'Can you feel it?' Jack asked.

'Yeah, I can feel it,' Gwen groaned. 'Oh, yeah. God, I can...' she murmured.

Ianto sighed heavily on Jack's other side.

'It's said that it reflects your own self back at you,' the blonde-haired woman who seemed to be in charge told them. 'What can you see?'

'Enough guilt to last me a lifetime,' Gwen said after a long moment. 'But that's OK, I'm a working mother, I didn't need The Blessing to tell me that.'

'And you, Jack?' the woman prompted, her tone making Ianto bristle though he kept his face impassive and said nothing.

'I've lived so many lives,' Jack said, ' and now I can see them all. Hey, not so bad?' He smiled and looked at Ianto beside him.

'All the pain, all the lies, all the loss,' Ianto said so quietly that Jack suspected that only he and Gwen could be sure of what he'd said. 'You,' he finished more firmly, turning to Jack with an honest half smile. Knowing, and letting Jack know, for the first time since the beginning of the Miracle and Jack's reappearance that there was still the foundation for something more than the collegiate relationship that they had perfected both as professionals and as a façade that protected their personal lives.

'Oh, save us from the useless hero worship,' Jilly Kitzinger interjected. 'As if the dramatics weren't pathetic enough, we've now got to put up with sentiment.' Ianto didn't turn, but both Jack and Gwen saw the murderous look that crossed his features before he schooled his expression into its customary pleasant blandness.

It was time: the tables had been turned, and re-turned, each reverse met by a corresponding answer. Jack's blood was at both ends of The Blessing, and there was nothing left to say and Jack stood with the knife held to his wrist, facing the nothingness at the gap between the rock and the edge. Gwen caught Ianto's eye and tilted her head to one side slightly, hand at the small of her back where her gun was tucked into the waistband of her jeans. He understood her silent question and shook his head mutely, eyes damp, knowing what they had to do.

'Just one last thing, Jack,' Gwen said, causing Jack to turn round to face them again.

'What is it?' he asked a fraction impatiently.

'You're not going to be a suicide, Jack,' Gwen told him. She drew her gun, and Ianto gave him a tight smile.

'Thank you,' Jack said.

'Bye, then,' Gwen said while Ianto nodded.

'Bye,' Jack said.

'Face front,' Gwen ordered and Jack obliged.

Ianto listened in silent horror as Ester was shot. Jack's look when he admitted to not knowing what to do told of all the pain he carried and the toll that making difficult decisions had taken on him over the years. He stood mute, knowing what Gwen's reaction had to be, and hoping fervently that she would not need prompting. Pride competed with sadness when she made her decision and stood straight as she laid out exactly why Rex had to let Ester go. Since joining Torchwood, he had managed to avoid bearing the responsibility that making decisions about life and death brought, but could sympathise since he'd often been the one to reassure Jack after particularly trying encounters. He certainly did not envy Gwen's position.

Despite knowing what was happening and Gwen's warning nod, Ianto flinched when Gwen's shot rang out. He held a hand out to Gwen as Jack's blood poured into The Blessing and he roared in pain. Gwen took it and held tight, her eyes teary, while his vision blurred and tears ran unheeded down his cheeks. 'Thank you, Gwen,' he managed when Jack collapsed. They ran to Jack, Gwen rolling him onto his back and checking his pulse while Ianto fell to his knees by his head. Gwen shook her head sadly: Jack was dead. Ianto lifted Jack's head and shoulders, setting him against him as was his wont.

'Go, Gwen,' he said, voice breaking, 'I'm staying with Jack.'

'Even though you'll die?' Gwen shouted, not wanting to lose any more people she cared about in one day: three, four if one counted Rex, was more than enough.

'Yes, he shouldn't be left here alone. Without him I've nothing worth living for.' Gwen seemed to accept that as another piece of masonry came crashing down. 'Give my love to Rhys,' Ianto said, summoning a smile despite his tears.

'I will,' Gwen promised.

'I love you too,' Ianto said, knowing that it was the last important thing to say, 'but not as much as I love Jack.' Gwen gave Ianto a hug and a hurried kiss on the cheek before she ran up to the lift, hauling the grille open before Jilly could make an effort to stop her.

Gwen watched helplessly as the lift started its slow ascent. Her two best friends and the last members of Torchwood were dead - or as good as. She knew it was better to remember them as they had been alive, but feared she would have nightmares for months to come.

Sudden movement caught her eye, a characteristic jerk and flail, only partially restrained by Ianto's hold. Desperate not to be too late, she hurled the red haired woman away from the lift controls and pushed the button to return them to the lower level. Jilly tried to drag her away again and she lashed out.

'How much bloody lipstick can you wear?' she growled, punctuating each word with a resounding punch until the other woman slumped in defeat, only partially conscious. She threw open the grille and waited, guarding the controls while Ianto supported Jack up the steps and into the lift. Gwen stepped back as they staggered in and hugged Jack.

Jilly had recovered enough to make a frantic dash for the controls. Face grim, and unforgiving, Ianto caught her by one arm and a handful of hair. He tossed her from the lift before closing the grille and holding it shut. She stumbled to her feet and screamed at him, pleading for her life.

'You don't deserve to live,' he told her, voice flat and unemotional, his gaze implacable.

'So now you get to decide?' Jilly threw back. 'That doesn't make you any better than us.'

'Perhaps not,' Ianto agreed cooly as the lift started its ascent, the grille held firmly closed against the woman's frantic but ineffectual attempts to open it, 'but part of my job is fighting monsters, so that's what I'm doing.'


	11. Looking forwards

After escaping from the destruction caused by Oswald Danes blowing himself, Jilly Kitzinger and a senior member of the three families to oblivion while providing a temporary seal to the Shanghai end of The Blessing, Jack sat on the ground, his back to a wall with Gwen snuggled close to one side and Ianto a solid presence against his other. He kept an arm tight around each of them, holding them close.

'You like to pretend that you don't care,' Gwen said after a while, 'that the past is over and done with and that you've either forgotten or that it doesn't matter, but it's only a pretence.'

'How do you know?' Jack asked, voice blunted by exhaustion.

'Because she knows you, Jack Harkness,' Ianto said, his tone one of fond exasperation underscored by relief. Gwen was glad that Ianto had spoken her thoughts: she feared she would have been unable to entirely disguise the tinge of resentment that currently coloured her feelings towards Jack, and right now, after dying as a mortal, he didn't need that.

'Back in sixty-five, I was told that the reason I was chosen to deliver the children was that I didn't care,' Jack said pointedly. He'd never admit it, but that statement, the lack of understanding and the callousness it forced on him had upset him as much as sending the children to the aliens.

'You play the part too well for your own good,' Gwen told him.

Jack sighed, he couldn't dwell on the past, he had too much of it, but sometimes it seemed that it was all he had. 'So what do we do?' he asked, somewhat forlornly. 'What do _I_ do?'

'We go home,' Gwen said, yawning. 'Back to Wales. You too. We bury my father and we bury Esther; Rex too if he didn't survive. Then we grieve and take stock, but not alone. The spare room's yours and Ianto's if the two of you want it.'

'You did just shoot me in the back,' Jack pointed out with a weak laugh.

'Yeah, I know,' Gwen replied sadly.

'Thank you for that,' Jack said, his voice sincere, though secretly glad that Ianto didn't have to shoulder that burden. Sending him through the Rift in the basement of the pub in Radyr to the slave traders when half-drunk and full of grief and anger was one thing; shooting him in the back in cold blood was another, even if it saved humanity.

Given that he'd come round in Ianto's arms, it seemed that Ianto hadn't been going to leave him anyway, so he wouldn't have lived long with the knowledge of what he'd done - apart from the fact that his immortality had returned, so Ianto would have to had to live with the knowledge if he'd been the one to pull the trigger. Jack also knew this set Ianto apart on another level: unlike every single one of his other lovers who had learnt about his immortality, Ianto had never actually killed him or placed him in a position where suicide was the most viable way out. He felt slightly ridiculous that the observation made him want to jump up in mad celebration and forced himself to not fidget.

That way lay madness, Jack knew, suppositions and possibilities tied up in a tangle of tenses, and, at the end of the day, it boiled down to the simple fact that Gwen understood Torchwood in relation to the rest of the world best. That context had allowed her to fully justify the decision she had had to make, despite the awareness that more than Ester's life was endangered by it, and would allow her to move on beyond the deaths without fleeing.

'I honestly thought this was going to be good bye,' Gwen admitted, 'killing my best friend - not exactly my finest hour - and it wasn't as if I hadn't got enough of a guilty conscience before then.'

Jack gave her shoulder a squeeze. 'Hey, hey,' he said comfortingly, 'I didn't die, so don't think about it.'

Gwen managed a watery laugh. 'No, you didn't,' she said and rested her head against Jack's shoulder. They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Jack stirred.

'I need to call UNIT,' Jack said, 'get this place and that warehouse in Buenos Aires sealed off.'

'I can take care of that if you wish,' Ianto offered.

'I appreciate the offer Ianto,' Jack said with as much cheer as he could muster, 'but you are still officially dead, which means that as far as UNIT and most other organisations are concerned, you will not even be recognised, let alone granted authority. After the mayhem of the last few months, I don't think UNIT will be amenable to dealing with a ghost.' That startled a snort of amusement from Ianto, though Gwen didn't move to let Jack get up.

'Oh,' said Ianto, 'I must be getting slow: I hadn't quite appreciated the inconveniences. Being Ifan Jones and moving to Mold didn't feel that much like witness protection, although I really came to hate the place. I don't know why I wouldn't have been as safe in Aberystwyth. At least with the university there would have been half a chance of a decent conversation. And good coffee,' he added, remembering the praises sung by a very talkative fellow passenger on a train journey from London to Cardiff soon after he'd joined Torchwood One.

'Perhaps I didn't want you to be too comfortable and forget me?' Jack suggested with a sideways look at Ianto.

'As if I could forget you, or would want to,' Ianto replied, apparently unfazed, and Gwen got the impression that several variants of this conversation had already happened, with the current version mostly for her benefit.

'Gwen, I need to make that call,' Jack said after a moment's quiet, pulling them all back to the present.

'You can make it sitting down can't you?'

'I suppose,' Jack sighed. UNIT personnel tended to be annoyingly pedantic and pacing helped deal with what often seemed like unnecessary bureaucracy.

'I nearly lost you, Jack,' Gwen said, trying not to sound whiny, 'I'm not going to let you get up and run away.'

'Who said anything about running away?' Jack shot back.

'OK, OK,' Gwen conceded, 'but still.' 

Jack sighed, she did have something vaguely resembling a point: his typical reaction in this sort of situation was to run. 'It's not like I need to hide anything from either of you anyway,' he said and tapped in the secure number for UNIT.

'Thank you,' Gwen whispered as Jack waited for an answer.


	12. Notes: On writing; on the original.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes in two parts:  
> 1) Why Ianto Jones has such a quiet life.  
> 2) Some thoughts on why 'Miracle Day' is so difficult to watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly because DeeBeader said my notes might be interesting.

1) On writing

I seem to be in the minority who don't have too much of an issue with the actual _plot_ , though premise is perhaps more accurate, of 'Miracle Day' (or 'Children of Earth' for that matter). I originally started off with the idea of making this a fairly complete re-write of 'Miracle Day' to include Ianto - predominantly into the scenes that involve the members of Torchwood as occupied Hub 2 in Battersea, but I soon realised that this would type-cast Ianto as Jack's shadow and I do not like 'Miracle Day' nearly enough (see later for why) to make a constrained rewriting rewarding - and there's a lot of it. So the problem that faced me was _realistically_ incorporating Ianto Jones into 'Miracle Day'. The answer was, of course, to make use of the fact that he is almost the very opposite of Jack.

There are many potentially interesting points that are not answered satisfactorily, adding to the dissatisfactory lurching between episodes that answer a lot of questions and those that leave one wondering why one even bothered to watch it through to the end. One particularly annoying point for me is how Jack and Ester get from Nevada to Wales and then to Scotland: it was this that really convinced me that having Ianto staying quietly at home was, in fact, the truest and most satisfactory route to take.

And this is not out of keeping with Ianto's character: Jack introduces him to Gwen (and us) as the one 'who gets us [Torchwood] everywhere on time'; in 'Children of Earth', he arrives back from their afternoon of obtaining supplies later than the others, having had the forethought to attend to more mundane matters. Where Jack is flamboyant, and Gwen wears her heart on her sleeve with her passion shining through, Ianto is restrained. The result is that Ianto doesn't need to go dashing around and can wait patiently. Then there's the Torchwood computer system, the server of which is still active. That led to the cryptic messaging system and a way of Ianto not really making an appearance until very late in the day in terms of viewer experience - but actually fairly early in the scheme of things happening. Ianto is a strong character, just a retiring one.

This absolved me almost entirely from the tedium, frustration and, to some extent, despair of finding and transcribing the relevant scenes from the ten episodes. There are a lot of wasted words, and a lot of poor dialogue, but with Ianto travelling to and fro across the Atlantic with Jack, there would only be so much that could be done to adapt the events to Ianto's presence and half of what would get added would be Rex being nasty (probably while thinking he's being smart). It gets a bit boring after a while and Ianto's presence wouldn't have any real effect on the plot.

The line about 'intergalactic playboy' was one of the first to be written - as part of another project that is consistent with (and, if I finish it, that will eventually follow) this, so I knew that Ianto and Jack had to meet at least twice. Then the events of Adam with how Ianto describes loving and losing Lisa and then coming to terms with it, made his presence at the Blessing a crucial factor. The something over eighteen months since the events of 'Children of Earth' will have had an effect on how Ianto sees Jack. The events of 'Miracle Day' cover, in my estimation, somewhere between three and four months, maybe a week or two longer. I have not filled in much of the six or so weeks between Ianto joining Esther and Jack in the back of beyond, although there are some conversations that I might detail, and the series of events - Oswald Danes' arrival, Geraint's removal, Rhys' recognition of the relationship between Buenos Aries and Shanghai - that lead up to one of Gwen's better lines about walking to Shanghai, is something that I am inclined, for completeness, to rewrite to incorporate Ianto into. Yet I only know one thing about this visit to Gwen: it is Ianto who gives Gwen's watcher retcon, not Jack.

In order for meetings to happen in a proper manner (remember I like realism and precision) had to do some serious thinking about the timeline of the start of Miracle Day. I don't think I've needed to change anything significantly, apart from perhaps making it explicit that Jack goes to the UK first, before going to Washington. Washington D. C. is in the Eastern Time Zone of the US, so is EST at the start of 'Miracle Day' and EDT at the end (by which point it is basically irrelevant). 

For clarity, the timeline of the first week of the 'Miracle' that I've used (with both Washington D. C. and UK times) is given below. I have included various timed events and, as far as I can work out, the timings given are accurate (apart from where I've commented about where the writers clearly consulted neither a road map nor a flight schedule). The points in italics are those that I have added for Ianto Jones being alive.

  * 'Miracle' + email: 0336 (GMT) Monday morning = 2236 Sunday night (EST) 
  * Malware + Rex's accident: <0430 [GMT, Monday morning] = 2330 [EST, Sunday night]
_Monday afternoon: Jack visits Ianto; leaves mid-Tuesday morning._
  * Andy phones Gwen: 1708 (GMT) Tuesday afternoon [1108 EST]
  * Gwen visits Cardiff: Tuesday night [Tuesday afternoon EST]
  * Jack to US: Depart Heathrow Tuesday afternoon (GMT); Arrive Dulles, Tuesday evening (Local time - EST) 
_Tuesday afternoon to Thursday morning, Ianto deals with Whitehall copies; confirms completion, late Wednesday night - c. 2345 (GMT, 1845 EST); returns to Mold, Thursday morning._
  * CIA explosion: Tuesday night (Washington) [Early Wednesday morning UK]
  * Jack gives name of Owen Harper, FBI: Wednesday afternoon (Washington). Wednesday night UK.
  * Rex and Jack leave US: Wednesday night (Washington) 0200 Thursday am (Washington? if 0200 is UTC, then it's 2100 on Wednesday evening - which might actually happen and the 0900 landing works) [0700 Thursday am, GMT] (the 0200 flight doesn't exist; so 2100 more likely.)
  * Land Heathrow: Thursday am (GMT), GMT - this is an impossibility: trans-atlantic: leave East Coast 1800, arrive UK, an hour or more early for 0700 schedule, so arrive Heathrow c. 1300 from an imaginary 0200 flight from Dulles. [Heathrow - Cardiff driving is about 3 hours]
  * At Gwen's: Latish afternoon < 1700 (GMT) Thursday
  * Roald Dahl Plass, Cardiff: c. 2200 (GMT) Thursday
  * Leave Heathrow, am Friday (GMT)
  * Arrive US (Dulles), midday Friday (EST) [Friday evening GMT]



So there you have a few notes on how I came to write 'A non-existent man', and how it fitted remarkably naturally into the timing of the first two episodes. In the next section I summarise why 'Miracle Day' is such atrocious TV, which involves a slight digression into Jack's past and some thoughts on why trans-atlantic collaboration may well have laid the ground for its failure.

 

2) On Miracle Day (plot, characterisation and some speculations)

I've read of 'Children of Earth' being described as 'good TV' but 'bad Torchwood' and, to an extent I agree, although I do think that the underlying premise is reasonably good Torchwood. There are some really odd errors such as East Grinstead being 2 hours from Cardiff (I would suspect that Gwen's first meeting with Clem was originally planned to occur after they'd settled in Hub 2 in Battersea from which it is about an hour and a half's drive).

'Miracle Day', meanwhile, has a similar problem: not great Torchwood - although again the underlying premise and the actual action isn't entirely out of keeping with Torchwood being forced to deal with events on a larger scale than Cardiff - but it is atrocious TV. As noted by many at the time, the pacing is terrible, and, and after the second episode - which is somewhat tiresome - basically nothing of note happens until episode eight. Then, apart from entirely too much shouting and some poorly scripted prevarication in episode 10, the last three episodes are passable. That's my opinion.

I cannot deny that it is rather fun to get glimpses into Jack's past, and that the writers have been almost as stingy about it as Jack isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, the exposition of Jack's time in America in 1927-28 takes up basically an entire episode without there being (as far as I can remember) any clear reason why we should be interested in this particular time in Jack's one hundred and something odd years on Earth. Most of what we learn is barely relevant to the story anyway, being scenes of a personal nature. While the fact that Angelo and Jack were lovers is important, the level of detail seems to serve no purpose.

Effective journeys into Jack's past have been made quite often in Torchwood - both as actual scenes and as dialogued description. In 'Small Worlds' (India, 1908), not much is made of it; in 'Children of Earth' (1965), where they form an underlying and complementary part of the main story; and the fragments or strange flashbacks to Jack's childhood in 'Adam' and 'Exit Wounds' also serve a narrative purpose, although less direct than those in 'Children of Earth'. The penultimate episode of series 2, 'Fragments' is neither the best nor the most effective of episodes, but I think that it becomes enjoyable and rewarding because we learn exactly how the four members of Torchwood whose personal histories we do not know were recruited. If recruited is the correct word. In light of the subsequent episode, it becomes poignant.

The different, full episode approach in 'Miracle Day' is awful: one spends most of the episode wondering whether any of the adventures are relevant - only to find out that most aren't. A summary in answer to a question, coupled with some relevant scenes - as done in 'Children of Earth' - would have taken considerably less screen time, contributed to more even pacing and have been much more effective, and needn't detract from Jack's relationship with Angelo Colasanto - or really Angelo Colasanto's relationship (obsession) with Jack. But, given that consistent plot and character development are the fundamental problems of 'Miracle Day', perhaps this long, unrewarding journey into Jack's past is symptomatic of an unacknowledged difficulty. 

There are many insignificant points, things like Jack using is vortex manipulator to change the names on the visa is ridiculous and unnecessary, as is most of the details about the time Angelo and Jack spend together. Meanwhile other scenes, such as those in the cellar and the one on the rooftop where Jack retrieves his coat before telling Angelo something along the lines of 'men like you, you kill me', are perhaps somewhat overdone, but relevant to the 'Miracle Day' story, and the understanding of Jack. I like the rooftop scene if only for the point of Jack being killed by his (male?) lovers when they find out he can't die. This is 1928: he'd been on Earth for just under sixty years, known he couldn't die for forty and was in his twenty-ninth year of working for Torchwood. It seems that he has figured out that his (male) lovers had a tendency to kill him (though whether this is a physical fact or an emotional one is open); as far as I am aware, Ianto Jones did not ever deliberately kill Jack Harkness, although he might have done it inadvertently in the radio play 'Broken'. If this is indeed the case, then perhaps there are some very good reasons why Ianto Jones is the person whom Jack knew he would see if he went to the last séance at The House of the Dead.

My personal suspicion is that if one tightened up the plot and dialogue to match the quality of the preceding three series of Torchwood, one would probably only end up with enough material for five or six episodes. Which leaves the writers with the problem of padding out each episode. Don't get me wrong, there are many places where scenes could have been added or extended, while improving the overall balance of the ten episodes, but maybe, just maybe, the writers were trapped between what seemed to be a rock and a hard place.

Overall, 'Miracle Day' is certainly not up to what I usually consider(ed) the BBC's standard, and from what little I've seen of American TV, the quality can be squarely placed on that side of the Atlantic [apologies, but one does have to ask what changed]. No, it is not a gradual degradation of BBC's standards, Dr Who seems to be going through a low spot, but that's 2018-19, but the excellent series 'The Coroner' was from 2015-2016, and 'The Body Farm', broadcast in Autumn 2011 showed that there were writers with the BBC who could write to a high standard about the time of 'Miracle Day'.

I think there may also be a more fundamental issue. Torchwood is, like Dr. Who from which it sprung, inescapably grounded in the British Sci-Fi tradition. As far as I understand - and I have not looked into this in detail, several American writers were added to the team. Perhaps this introduced two connected facets that would have required great effort to control? Firstly, the experience of tackling serious issues effectively in TV drama rather than devolving to frivolity or inanity (there's far _far_ too much shouting in the second, while the final episode wavers between strong, punchy lines and statements no more imposing than those for which John Hart chastises Ianto for in 'Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang'); secondly, the understanding of the very nature and culture that Torchwood is rooted in.

Reading 'The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' before and after becoming immersed in Dr. Who and Torchwood are two very different experiences. Reading it before - as far as I remember - it was weird and felt rather disjointed. Reading it after, one doesn't need to know that Douglas Adams wrote for Dr. Who, it is clear from the style. Blowing things up is fine - as long as it moves the characters from one place to another (with a purpose) and serves to develop the plot. Gwen triggers a gloriously big explosion at one point, but it doesn't seem to do much. As a Brit, the continual exaggeration of actions and reactions, coupled with uninspiring, often repetitive dialogue is an imported feature. I don't object to the global scale or implications of what Torchwood are dealing with; nor am I objecting to the fact that most of the action takes place in the US. But Torchwood is a _British_ TV show - there is no need to go (so far) over the top. (As Jack well knows, that is like walking into Hell.)

If one considers all the new characters, the only ones I really appreciated were Esther, Noah and Shapiro: they were consistent, and actually had a point to the story; one can add Friedkin and Charlotte too, weighing in on the side of the Families. The others are mostly cringe-worthy: Rex is a jerk, who would have been quite likeable if he'd grown up as a result of his association with Torchwood and the Miracle, but he doesn't. The only major characters who seem to develop in anyway are Esther and, curiously, Oswald Danes, who at the end shows a streak of nobility(?) and a grasp of the implications of what's going on that does not mitigate his unrepentant nature, but shows that he has, as a result of the Miracle, reassessed the world and his place in it. Minor characters merely being as presented to us first is necessary, but one can not engage with major characters if they do not develop from how they are first presented - for good or for evil. Take any story that's really stood the test of time - I'm thinking the Greek myths, Shakespeare's plays - the key characters at the end are different people at the end (or their deaths, in the case of the tragedies) compared to who they were at the start. OK, so Miracle Day explores human darkness and the what-if scenario of no-one dying, and that means that greed is going to dominate, but for almost every new character to fall into that category and for Jack and Gwen to be presented as so consistently unreflective is just plain annoying.

We know that Jack has a lot of history; but that history generally makes him sad; we also know that the incident with the 4-5-6 has not done irreparable damage to his respect for the Doctor. So why should his character change so much? Sure, he's likely to be more morose, but to be so, I don't know, irresponsible? I can see that his going out on the town in D. C. was two fingers to the world and following Rex's example, but it's not the Jack Harkness of Torchwood Three - not after the Millennium. It almost seems as if they wrote 1927 Jack with no long term responsibilities and only one World War's worth of uncollected medals (presumably) and then kept him the same through another World War (and I wouldn't want to think where he ended up if he was sent behind enemy lines...), various other conflicts, quite possibly Vietnam, inheriting an underground base full of his dead friends and colleagues, building and then losing an entire team. Not to mention the year that never was, during which he was tortured for amusement while he watched the Earth being destroyed.

To conclude (if such a set of rambles can even be said to have a conclusion):

I've said this several times, and may as well repeat myself: I, personally, have no real problem with the basic story of 'Miracle Day', just the dramatisation (but separating the two requires conscious, critical effort). The pain of watching it in detail in order to rewrite the majority of the actual Torchwood part of the story to include Ianto was the one of the main reasons I chose to have Ianto live a quiet life. (Two others being that if I did, he would simply become Jack's shadow and get picked on by Rex.)

As I see it, the major problems with 'Miracle Day' are the uneven pacing and the poor, overstated characterisation that makes Oswald Danes just one of a swarm of smarmy characters - and the one who needs to be smarmy. Jack and Gwen are both exaggerated compared to their earlier appearances, and Jack's character has lost its charm - his almost irrepressible irreverence coupled with his very real awareness of the seriousness and implications of being the head of Torchwood (Three). The tangled presentation of the plot development and the almost complete absence of character development - Oswald Danes and Esther Drummond excluded - is, for me what drives 'Miracle Day' to the almost unwatchable - and only just bearable if one spends a lot of time on fast-forward.

'Miracle Day' is dark and twisted and complicated, though it seems that a lack of judicious streamlining of what is shown and what is explained - or how details are introduced - has resulted in extremely dull TV with lots of seemingly pointless threads that only get tied up at the very end (by which time, how many people gave up, or came close to giving up, with the whole thing?). To give credit where it's due, at least the majority of the loose threads _did_ get tied up; there's no real sense of wondering what on Earth happened to a dog that made such a significant appearance at one point as happened in one of the most annoying modern detective books I've ever read - it sticks in my mind partly because of this dog that was just left hanging there.

And yet, maybe the darkness of 'Miracle Day', and the swathe of less than favourable characters it exposes us to is exactly the point: Jack has lost his faith, so the world of 'Miracle Day' is representing his world as the murderer of his grandson and a man who's lost the person whom he knew he would see if he visited 'The House of the Dead'. The shit that came through the Rift is replaced by the scum of humanity. 'By day, chasing the scum of the universe, by night the wedding fairy.' Only in Miracle Day, there is no lightness, with Ianto alive, he is the 'wedding fairy' (again), and the scum of the Universe has been replaced by the scum of the Earth. Without Ianto, there is no 'wedding fairy' - no one whom Jack can trust to at least stand beside him while everything goes wrong and stoop with him to build things up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: These are personal observations and thoughts. Thoughtful, reasoned reactions, more than welcome. By all means disagree, but do so in a thoughtful and respectful manner.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed this, although I realise it's probably not everyone's cup of tea.


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